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Irene Natividad
President of the Global Summit of Women, an international gathering of women leaders from around the world
Irene Natividad is the president of the Global Summit of Women, an international gathering of women leaders from around the world. Few women have contributed more to the global exchange of ideas among women entrepreneurs than Irene. The Summits she has organized over the past 14 years on every continent reach across borders, across disciplines, and across cultures to allow women to learn from each other in their ongoing work towards economic equity.
Irene’s commitment to promoting women nationally and internationally stems from her decade-long involvement with the National Women’s Political Caucus, a 30-year-old bipartisan organization dedicated to electing and appointing more women to political office. Widely recognized for her leadership of the caucus, she was elected president in 1985 and re-elected in 1987, the first Asian American ever to head a national political organization.
The Summits she has organized over the past 14 years on every continent reach across borders, across disciplines, and across cultures to allow women to learn from each other in their ongoing work towards economic equity.
During the 90s, Irene assumed the chairmanship of the National Commission on Working Women, which works on economic equity issues affecting women through groundbreaking research and training programs.
Irene co-chairs Corporate Women Directors International, which promotes the increased participation of women on corporate boards globally. In 1994, President Clinton appointed her to the Board of Directors of Sallie Mae, a Fortune 100 company.
A native of the Philippines, Irene is also a leader in the Asian American community. She is executive director of the Philippine American Foundation, and runs her own public affairs firm in Washington , D.C. , Globewomen, Inc.
A sought-after commentator, her views are aired nationally on PBS ‘To the Contrary,’ and she has appeared on Crossfire, the Today Show, Good Morning America, Fox News, MSNBC, and other network programs. Her editorials have appeared in USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Des Moines Register, Chicago Tribune, and other major newspapers. Long known for her coalition work, she serves on the boards of numerous organizations, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, National Association of Corporate Directors, and Enterprising Women Magazine.
Terry Neese and Barbara Kasoff
Founders of Women Impacting Public Policy, a national bi-partisan public policy organization advocating for women in business
As co-founders of Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), a national bi-partisan public policy organization advocating for women in business, this dynamic duo represents the organization’s more than 500,000 women business owners and women in business on Capitol Hill and to the Administration. Through their work with WIPP, Terry and Barbara have helped give women entrepreneurs a seat at the table. The organization has been especially active this year in helping to make sure that both presidential campaigns understand the voting power and political clout of women in business.
Terry made history in 1990 as the first woman nominated by a major political party for lieutenant governor in Oklahoma. Prior to that historic campaign, she founded Terry Neese Personnel Services, which will celebrate 30 years in business in 2005. An entrepreneur of five companies, anchored by the personnel industry, her businesses range from farming and ranching to Gulf Coast real estate and public policy strategy.
Terry and Barbara co-founded GrassRoots Impact, a corporate and government public policy strategy firm with rapid response surveying capabilities. Clients have included American Express, Intuit, IBM , Verizon, and other top global corporations.
Terry’s roots run deep in the Cherokee Nation. She has received three presidential appointments to the National Advisory Council on Indian Education, serving as a voice for the Indian community. She has also served on the Small Business Administration Advisory Board, the Office Depot Women’s Advisory Board, the Euro-American Women’s Council, and the Advisory Council for the United States Committee for United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). She is in the second year of a three-year term on the National Women’s Business Council. In recognition of Terry’s small business advocacy and her successful efforts to create the Terry Neese Center for Entrepreneurial Excellence, an SBA Women’s Business Center which opened in October 2001 in Oklahoma City , she was presented with the prestigious Unsung Heroines Award in Washington , D.C. The recipient of numerous awards, Terry has been induced into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, NY.
Barbara has also been the owner of several companies, including Voice-Tel of Michigan , the fourth largest voice messaging company in the Voice-Tel franchise community; Voice-Tel of Central Michigan , and Voice Response Corporation, a teleservice and database marketing company. Prior to becoming a business owner, Barbara served as senior vice president of research and software development for World Computer Corporation in Michigan for ten years.
A delegate to the White House Conference on Small Business, and the recipient of the State of Michigan Women in Business Advocate of the Year Award in 1995, Barbara serves on the Board of Directors of the National Women Business Owners Council. She has also served as chair of the National Association of Women Business Owners Political Action Committee and is a past president of the Detroit NAWBO Chapter.
Through her coalition work, Barbara helped develop new and closer relationships with the Michigan District of the Small Business Administration, Small Business Development Centers , Department of Commerce, and local corporate leaders.
Harriet Michel
President of the National Minority Supplier Development Council, a private, non-profit organization that expands business opportunities for minority-owned companies of all sizes
Harriet Michel is President of the National Minority Supplier Development Council ( NMSCA ), a private non-profit organization that expands business opportunities for minority-owned companies of all sizes. The Council encourages mutually beneficial economic links between minority suppliers, and the public and private sectors, helping to build a stronger, more equitable society by supporting and promoting minority business development.
Harriet is responsible for leading the NMSCA Network, which includes 39 affiliated regional councils. It matches more than 15,000 certified minority businesses with its more than 3,500 corporate members that want to purchase their goods and services.
A noted administrator and public policy expert on minority issues, Harriet worked for over 30 years in the public sector, developing and managing programs that address major social concerns. Prior to joining NMSCA in 1988, she was a resident fellow at the Institute of Politics , Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University , where she taught a course on politics and public policy issues and wrote about Black leadership.
Harriet served as president and CEO of the New York Urban League from 1983 to 1988 and was responsible for providing services to over 70,000 New Yorkers each year through more than 20 programs in education, employment, health/social services and housing. She established the Women Against Crime Foundation at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to create a statewide model volunteer fair housing program for North Carolina.
A member of three U.S. Agency for International Development missions to South Africa , Harriet has participated in discussions on the role government and corporations can play in small/minority business development. Her international work also includes serving on the U.S.-Haiti Business Development Committee.
“The Council encourages mutually beneficial economic links between minority suppliers, and the public and private sectors.”
Nell Merlino
Co-founder of Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, a non-profit organization that uses a unique, women-friendly scoring system to make micro-business loans available online.
Nell Merlino is the co-founder of Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, a national non-profit organization that uses a unique, women-friendly scoring system to make micro-business loans available online to women business owners. The organization has made hundreds of loans to women across the country.
Prior to launching Count Me In, Nell started her own business in 1989, Strategy Communication Action, Ltd. The firm promotes change through the creation of public education campaigns and major media events.
The creative force behind the immensely successful Take Our Daughters to Work Day, which she designed and produced for the Ms. Foundation for Women in 1993, Nell is an expert at motivating people to take action. In its first ten years, over 71 million Americans participated in Take Our Daughters to Work Day, and the event is now international in scope.
Nell also has extensive experience in the development and production of dynamic, highly effective national and international programs, including the NGO Forum on Women in Beijing ’95, Earth Day’s 20th Anniversary, YWCA Week Without Violence, and Picture What Women Do for Lifetime Television.
Prior to forming her own business, Nell worked in two state governments and has been a Fulbright Scholar, a union organizer, and an advance woman for two presidential campaigns.
Featured in the book Remarkable Women of the 20th Century—100 Portraits of Achievement, Nell was named one of “50 New Yorkers to Watch in 1999” by the New York Daily News, and was named Woman of the Year by New Woman Magazine in 1993.
“Nell is the creative force behind the immensely successful Take Our Daughters to Work Day, which she designed and produced for the Ms. Foundation for Women in 1993.”
Connie Duckworth
Retired partner of Goldman Sachs, and the founding partner of Circle Financial Group, as well as past chairman of the board of the Committee of 200
Connie Duckworth made history when she was elected the first woman sales/trading partner at Goldman Sachs. Now retired from the firm, she is a founding partner of Circle Financial Group in New York City , and the co-author of The Old Girls’ Network: Insider Advice for Women Building Businesses in a Man’s World.
Connie is the immediate past chairman of the board of The Committee of 200, an organization of preeminent businesswomen. She serves on the boards of The DNP Select Income Fund, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Foundation, and the Wharton School ’s Board of Overseers.
The recipient of numerous awards, Connie was named to Working Mother magazine’s first list of “The 25 Most Influential Working Mothers in America ” and was recently named one of the 2004 Women Leaders for the 21st Century by Women’s eNews.
A member of the State Department’s U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council, Connie founded a new not-for-profit corporation, Arzu, Inc., in response to a site visit to Kabul in January 2003. Arzu (which means hope in Dari) aims to provide a market and resulting income to Afghan women weaving carpets, enabling them to improve their lives and those of their families on a sustainable basis. All surplus proceeds from the sale of carpets will be contributed to provide education, health care, and other services to Afghan women and their families.
With a strong interest in international issues, Connie also serves on the Council on Foreign Relations Women’s Task Force and the Advisory Board of the Business Council for Peace.
“Connie was named to Working Mother magazine’s first list of “The 25 Most Influential Working Mothers in America .”
Adrienne Hall
President and CEO, The Hall Group, a Los Angeles-based advertising and marketing communications firm
Adrienne Hall has combined a ground breaking career—as the founder of the first advertising agency in America headed by a woman—with extensive involvement in her community of Los Angeles, as well as national and international involvement in organizations that advance women in business.
Adrienne now heads her own international marketing and communications firm, The Hall Group, and is involved in a number of entrepreneurial ventures in the U.S. and abroad. She is a founding member of The Committee of 200 and the International Women’s Forum, and chairs the Board of Directors of the Women Presidents’ Organization.
In 1998, Adrienne chaired the Women’s Business Outreach at the Women’s Economic Summit, and has served on the National Women’s Business Council. She has also co-chaired the State Economic Network in California.
A leader in the Los Angeles community, she serves as a director of the Executive Service Corps, and has been a governor of Town Hall, a trustee of the National Health Foundation, a trustee of UCLA, and a regent of Loyola Marymount University . She served for seven years as a director of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and now co-chairs the alumni directors of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.
Active in the arts, Adrienne serves as a commissioner on the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and on more than two dozen advisory boards locally and nationally. One of her passions has been to build multi-cultural bridges and she sits on advisory boards within the African American, Latino and Asian communities. A mother of seven children, she raised a multi-cultural family, with three of her children adopted (African American, Latino, and Chinese).
Adrienne has been a part of the President’s Business Leaders Outreach, the Welfare to Work Partnership, and serves on the John F. Kennedy School of Government Women’s Leadership Board at Harvard University.
As chair of the Advisory Council for The Leading Women Entrepreneurs of the World, the organization honored her as an awardee in 2003. She was part of a team which worked to fund the first women’s professional sports league, Women’s Professional Fast Pitch.
A global traveler, she has observed projects in Haiti and Vietnam for Save the Children, was part of the delegation to the inaugural in Mexico City, and sits on the board of a university in China. She and her husband Maurice are avid collectors of ancient art, folk art, and one of the largest rare jazz collections in the country.
Lifetime Achievment award
Beatrice Fitzpatrick
Founder and CEO of The Bold Initiative, and the founder of the American Woman’s Economic Development Corporation (AWED), the first organization in the nation to train women to start, run and grow their own businesses
Beatrice Fitzpatrick is a pioneer in the movement to gain recognition and support for women-owned businesses in the United States . She founded the first organization in the country that trained women to start, run and grow their own businesses, the American Woman’s Economic Development Corporation (AWED).
Starting as a two-page concept paper, AWED became a national organization with offices in New York , Washington , D.C. and Los Angeles . It has helped over 200,000 women from every ethnic and socio-economic group in all 50 states hone their management skills and become entrepreneurs.
Based on the success of AWED, Congress passed legislation by a vote of 389 to seven in the House of Representatives, and unanimously in the Senate, to fund the establishment of training programs like AWED in cities across the country. As a result, there are Women’s Business Development Centers in 40 states, 69 cities, Washington , D.C. , Puerto Rico , and on the Web training America ’s entrepreneurial women to run their own businesses.
Today Beatrice runs The Bold Initiative, a national non-profit organization she founded to help CEOs, diversity executives, human resource leaders and others in major companies strengthen their organizational performance and people systems while accelerating their leadership diversity.
She is also the founder of The Fitzpatrick Group, Inc., a business that developed a cutting edge approach to diversifying corporate leadership. Based on a strategy of solving specific business challenges facing each company, she and her colleagues applied breakthrough corporate change management technology to issues of leadership diversity.
As the head of a non-profit organization in the New York City Mayor’s Office, Beatrice supervised research studies ranging from energy conservation to transportation and the economic development of the nation’s central business districts. She conceived and created the Citizens’ Urban Information Center program to provide current information on all available services. It became a model for library systems across the country.
She was also actively involved in special projects through the Mayor’s office related to education, parental involvement, and Head Start. She designed, supervised and wrote the guidelines for the introduction of community-based paraprofessionals and for parent involvement in the New York public school system. Her innovations continue to be used at school systems and Head Start Centers throughout the country.
Beatrice has been the subject of numerous articles in Life, Time, Nation’s Business, Inc. Magazine, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and many other publications. She has been interviewed on Good Morning America, The Today Show, CBS This Morning, Jane Bryant Quinn’s show, and many others. Her work has been featured in The Amsterdam News, Essence Magazine, El Diario, WLIB, and other ethnic media. The recipient of many awards, Beatrice was honored by Crain’s New York Business as its first woman “All-Star.”
(This article is reprinted from the 2004 Enterprising Women of the Year edition of Enterprising Women magazine. Copyright 2004 Enterprising Women Inc. Reproduction in whole or part is prohibited, except by express permission of the publisher.) |
